


simulation

by serenfire



Series: buckle up kids we're fixing tlj [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Finn waking up, Finn-centric, Force-Sensitive Finn, Force-Sensitive Leia Organa, M/M, PTSD, Pre-Slash, Star Wars: The Last Jedi Spoilers, The Last Jedi Fix-It, to The Plan Being Hatched
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-17 17:38:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13081881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenfire/pseuds/serenfire
Summary: (Major Spoilers for The Last Jedi)Not today.It’s not a simulation, it’s real life, and in real life, there is always a way to survive. Finn draws the floating bodies back to him with the raw power of something growing deep inside him, and when he opens his eyes again, he can see Leia Organa.





	simulation

Hyperspace glides through the window, and Finn is asleep.

He dreams of fire and fury, the surface of Starkiller Base, cold and frozen and windswept and bare. He dreams of the bark, pressed against his teeth, the struggle for consciousness, grabbing a cold metal hilt at the end of his consciousness.

The pain is no longer in the core of his back, no longer pressing against his lungs and scratching his ribcage with its smell of singed flesh. The pain is no longer there; the pain has been replaced with a cold void.

Finn grabs the lightsaber, ignites it with a press—and how does he know where a lightsaber’s ignition is?—and holds it tight against his body like a staff in weapons training, like Phasma is watching him through the one-way glass. Except it’s not Phasma who’s watching him, but Ren himself, maskless.

Finn can sense the evil stemming from within Ren, he can sense the darkness gnawing away at his soul. He can see the rage, the confusion that a nobody, a stormtrooper, would be able to stand up to him.

Ren might say something—“ _How are you doing this_?”

Finn doesn’t respond. The world is fractured, he’s been through this before, this is nothing but a repeated scenario in Phasma’s labs, where time and memory are distorted for education and re-education, and Finn doesn’t know what this is but he knows it’s a trap.

_I don’t know how I’m doing this_ , he thinks, and charges anyway. The blue light swings next to him, out of his grasp, and he’s fighting Kylo Ren. It’s instinctual, and oh so much easier without the constrictive white plating shielding him from instant death. Finn’s going up against the shadowy black figure he sees out of the corner of his eye at night, haunting him. Taunting him.

He remembers his weapons training, the top marks he used to yearn for, before they slaughtered his friends like it was nothing and Finn knew that no amount of training would save him from his own superiors.

But whatever Finn knows, Kylo Ren has also learned, years before him and with extra training from Supreme Leader Snoke himself. Finn can pick up a lightsaber, but Ren knows the Force, and it’s not the same.

Finn makes a mistake, bares his back, and he feels the sizzle of the sparking lightsaber arc up his back, the pain indescribable. Every nerve burnt at once. The skin open, peeling, sliced in half—his jacket sliced in half— _Poe’s_ jacket sliced in half—

The lightsaber rolling out of Finn’s reach, anchoring itself in the crunch of snow, and Finn reaches for it. But he doesn’t have the Force. His vision blacks, he feels ice in his veins, and he stills, hand outstretched.

Is he dead? Finn doesn’t know. It’s a simulation. It has to be a simulation, or else he wouldn’t be thinking these thoughts. Maybe this is the afterlife. Would he feel pain in the afterlife? In the back of his mind, a constant throb. Stitching, maybe. The kind of doctoring that only royalty and rich men can afford. Where is Finn right now?

Is this a simulation, still?

Finn gasps, opening his eyes. Pushing against the box that holds him. He’s on his back, staring up at a clear screen, numbers and patterns scrawling over it like this is unexpected. A heartbeat. Normal. A percentage. Eighty-seven. Eighty-seven what?

There’s no tube shoved down his throat like after he got knocked out during his first campaign against hastily-painted gonk droids, when he was nine years old and good enough with his staff that he could stay out of range of their tasers.

Finn can breathe the air.

He opens the cover, and sits up. He’s on a ship, medical equipment stashed hurriedly, piled up in every corner. He’s wearing a suit with tubes hooked into it, a fluid flowing around his veins.

This isn’t a First Order ship.

“Rey?” he says cautiously.

No response. There’s no one in the room with him, like they didn’t expect him to wake up—or, at least, not wake up at this time. Maybe they thought he would wake up at some point. Hopefully they didn’t leave him in a presumed comatose state forever.

But—his back.

Finn stretches his arm, constricted by the suit, to touch his back. He can’t reach it. Finn twists, and dislodges some tubing while he does, reaching under the plastic wrap to feel the top of the burned spot in his memory. There’s nothing but a thin, knotted line where the scar was, just seconds ago. It’s been just seconds since Finn collapsed.

But he’s not on Starkiller Base. Is he on the Falcon?

The Falcon’s interior isn’t this clean.

Finn has to get up and search this ship.

There’s no button around that he can press to suck all of the liquid out of his suit, so he just carefully steps out of it, wincing as he watches it seep onto the floor. A week ago, this would be his job, to clean up what insolent medical patients spill. Not anymore. Finn isn’t part of the First Order any more.

His clothes aren’t anywhere, but there is a pile of standard flight jumpsuits next to the door, and he can squeeze into one of them. No weapons in sight, not even in the half-opened medical boxes. Just gauze strips and latex gloves.

Finn can throw a box at anyone who tries to kill him, at least. He tucks the box under his arm and cautiously opens the door.

The hallway is empty but not abandoned. Finn sets off down the hall, and around him, a door slides open, and personnel walk quickly to another room, silent. Tense. Their uniforms bear the insignia of the Resistance, so Finn is somewhere. D’Qar? But this is a ship. Is it moving?

Finn touches the bleached wall, feeling the hum vibrate throughout the his hand. It’s moving.

He doesn’t know the layout of any Resistance ships, so Finn continues down the hall, looking for anything, anyone. Is Rey here?

No one gives Finn a second look. He’s dressed like one of them, and no one questions him. If he was actually a First Order spy instead of a defector, this would be the easiest place to sneak into in the world.

Finn shakes himself out of his thoughts. He’s not part of the First Order any longer. He belongs to no one but himself.

He sees a flash of orange in the distance, and a pilot in an flight suit hurries down the hall. Finn catches his breath, maybe it’s Poe—but it’s not, and the person passes him without a second look.

Maybe the pilot came from the hangar. Maybe Poe’s in the hangar. If Poe wasn’t off getting mentored by the famous General Organa, then he would be in the hangar polishing his X-Wing. That Finn knows.

As Finn approaches the hangar, he sees more pilots walking out. They are smiling. They are…victorious?

The hangar itself is full of more ships than Finn realized the Resistance had. X-Wings, Y-Wings, Bombers, all lined up neatly in a row. Pilots and gunners dismounting, slapping each other on the back. A good day.

Finn catches a gunner about to leave. “What just happened?”

She looks at him with satisfied eyes. “We were able to pull to hyperspace before things got ugly.”

Pull to hyperspace? The Resistance is fleeing?

“Would you happen to know where Poe Dameron is?”

“Commander Dameron?” She swings around, pointing to a conglomeration of X-Wings. “His landing spot’s there.”

“Thanks,” Finn breathes, and walks over to it. His back injury might look all but healed, but he can feel the tightness in his sore muscles. It must have been a wound deeper than skin.

X-Wings are all lined up on the dock, and hangar workers are unloading droids and pilots, except that there’s a spot empty. People keep casting looks to the one empty spot, and without having to ask, Finn knows that’s Poe’s spot.

His breath catches in his throat.

“What happened?” he croaks.

A newly dismounted pilot looks at Finn. “He didn’t jump to hyperspace with us,” he says, voice thick.

“What? Is he…gone?” No. It can’t be. Finn won’t let it be. Not after all they went through.

“Last I heard, he was going after the malfunctioning bomber. Here, you can listen to the feed if you want—“ He takes off his helmet and gives it to Finn. The man turns away and pats his droid on the head, and Finn fits the sweaty helmet over his head.

The visor is old and cracked, but the sound is clear. Finn turns the dial until the visor display reads _Black Squadron - All_ , and he hears Poe, clear and loud, in his ear.

“… _Prime your bombs, your opening’s coming up soon._ ”

It was Poe’s voice, tense but unwavering. BB-8 in the background, whirring frantically.

Poe’s on a suicide mission. Poe’s left behind, and even as hyperspace travels farther, the sound is still clear. It’s being boosted for the world to hear.

Finn sits down on the tarmac, hard.

“ _Now_!” Poe screams in his ear. “ _It’s now or never, Paige_!”

Sparks flying the background, the sound of static, and then, Poe’s breathing through an oxygen mask, the sound reverberating into his mic. Is there no oxygen? Is Poe’s fighter malfunctioning?

Finn can’t do anything but sit there, back and forth, listening to Poe struggle for breath and bite off a scream. Poe picks up something, and a loud slam reverberates in Finn’s ears.

What is there to slam in space?

“ _BB-8, punch it,_ ” Poe coughs, and Finn’s heartbeat picks up. Poe made it. By himself, stranded back where the entire Resistance is running from, Poe Dameron, ace pilot, made it.

Poe’s not dead.

Finn looks to the hangar doors, a translucent shield all that separates them from light speed, light streaking across the ship like paint.

And then the cruiser drops out of light speed. Finn buckles and almost falls over, but scrambles to his feet. Ships that don’t yet have their parking brake on screech over a couple of inches, sparks burning onto the hangar floor.

Finn doesn’t pay attention to it. He looks outside the hangar, waiting for Poe to appear.

Seconds later, an X-Wing drops into orbit, its left wing half gone, smoking, angled toward the hangar doors.

The man next to Finn says, “He’s going to crash land.”

Everyone else must be having the same idea, because Finn is amongst the mob of people bolting out of the hangar as fast as they can, and Finn sees Poe’s X-Wing hit the runway hard and keep going. He can’t see the man in it until the X-Wing has screeched to a stop and is nestled against the far wall, and everyone races towards it.

Finn’s in the crowd, and he can’t see who opens the cockpit, just that the operator on a ladder is taking something very large into his arms and passing it down.

“Med pack! We need a med pack!” The cry comes down the line, and Finn sees someone race down the hallway with a gunner over their shoulder, wheezing. Her skin is shaking, and when she opens her eyes, they are fully red.

Space exposure.

Finn turns around to Poe, cleaving through the crowd wildly. “Poe!” he screams, because if she was exposed to the cold dead air of space, then Poe must have been, too. If that’s what that slam was…

The same operator takes Poe into his arms and lowers him down the ladder, until Poe sitting on a hangar cart. Pilots flock around him, but Finn is also there.

Poe is talking raggedly, alternately breathing into an oxygen mask.

“It was under twenty seconds,” Poe assures them. “See?” He opens his eyes, of which one is fully filled with blood from a burst vein. The other is only slightly pink. “No need to worry.”

The man who lent Finn his helmet is responding rapid-fire. “No excuses. Med bay, now, that’s an order.”

“You can’t order me around, Snap,” Poe grins, but descends into a coughing fit, and when he looks up, his oxygen mask is filled with blood.

“I’m carrying you to the med bay,” Snap says, and picks Poe up in his arms.

“Poe!” Finn shouts.

Poe notices him.

“Finn!” Poe returns, reaching out to him. Finn wraps his arms around Poe as tight as he can, considering Poe’s condition, and Poe returns the hug, albeit weakly.

“We have to go,” the man, Snap, says, and Finn runs down the hall with him to the room he just left.

It’s not empty now. Finn’s bed is now populated with a woman strapped down and connected to more machines than Finn was, pilots hooking her up to even more.

Someone pulls out a cot for Poe, someone else places an oxygen mask on his face. Finn doesn’t know what to do, he’s not a doctor, but as Poe struggles to keep conscious, as all exposed skin is covered in a resin presumably meant to cool his boiling blood, Finn holds his hand.

“I’m here,” Finn promises Poe. Poe looks at him, smiling, and squeezes back.

**

Poe wakes up soon after, or at least Finn assumes it’s soon after because he himself falls asleep on the stool in the corner of the room waiting for something to happen. Poe is a lot less graceful than Finn was: he bolts up, the oxygen mask tugging him down, and calls Finn’s name.

Finn is awake in a heartbeat, the first heartbeat fear because it reminds him of being called _FN-2187_ , and the second heartbeat washes the fear away because it’s Poe.

“How are you doing?” Finn asks. Poe struggles to sit upright, and Finn props a pillow behind him.

Poe takes off his oxygen mask and looks at Finn. One eye has drained, the other is as red as ever. “Alive,” Poe grins. “Awake.”

Finn nods, and clasps Poe’s hand like he did when Poe fell asleep. Poe threads their fingers together, smiling softly.

“It’s like a reversal of yesterday,” Poe says.

“Yesterday?”

“When we brought you to the med bay, after the fight on Starkiller Base.”

“That happened yesterday? Never mind, where’s Rey?”

“She went after Luke Skywalker. To get his help. Or to get trained. I’m not sure. She wanted to wait for you to wake up, but Organa decided it was imperative for her to leave as soon as possible. Because of the state of the Resistance.”

“What happened to Starkiller Base?”

At that, Poe gives him a thumbs up. “It’s gone. We blew it up. We won. At least, we won yesterday.”

“What about today?”

Poe looks off in the distance, somewhere else than Finn. “The First Order called their remaining ships. They’re almost gone, but they had fight left somewhere in them. Enough that it caught us by surprise. So we ran.”

Finn remembers what Maz told him, about running away, and what he thought was the only option for him.

“Was it the right thing to do?”

“Buddy, it was the only thing we could have done. As much as I’d like to stay and blow something up, we couldn’t just blow up a Dreadnought. Or—I guess we did blow up a Dreadnought. Huh, I should probably tell General Organa that Paige blew up the Dreadnought.”

Poe motions beside him, to where the gunner lies in the box that Finn had woken up in. She looks worse than Poe, and even as Poe’s skin tries to recover from the oxygen expanding and bubbling within him, Paige is even worse.

“What happened?” Finn asks quietly. Poe looks like he wants to talk about it. “I heard your comms, but I don’t know what happened.”

“I disabled the Star Destroyer’s surface cannons, like the original mission called for. And then the Dreadnought came, and we obviously couldn’t sustain our attack against it. So we ran. Except Paige’s pilot was down and her circuitry malfunctioned and she couldn’t retreat with the rest of us. There was nothing to do but finish her course and set the bombs on the Dreadnought.”

“Just you and a bomber? Against a Star Destroyer and a Dreadnought?”

“And a couple dozen TIE Fighters,” Poe says, cheeky. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

Finn squeezes Poe’s hand even harder. “That’s not true. You almost died. That’s why you’re in the same place that I was just a little bit ago. Because I almost died.”

“But you didn’t, and I didn’t, and we’re okay now.”

“Yeah,” Finn echoes. “We’re going to be okay.”

The med bay door slams open and a mechanic runs in. She stops at the foot of Paige’s bed, and quietly looks down at the gunner. “Paige,” she whispers, holding her necklace that glints in the light.

The same necklace is around Paige’s neck.

Poe sits up. “Paige isn’t awake yet.”

The mechanic looks at him. “Do you know when she will be?”

“Sorry, I don’t. I’m not a doctor.”

The mechanic stares at Poe, as if trying to place him, but then she looks at his and Finn’s interlocked hands, and then up to Finn. Finn makes eye contact, but it is a very uncomfortable.

“You’re Finn,” the mechanic says.

“Um.”

“The Resistance hero.”

Finn looks at Poe. Since when was he a hero? Poe just grins up at him and gives him a thumbs up.

The mechanic stretches out her hand. “I’m Rose. Paige’s sister.”

Finn shakes her hand. “I’m Finn. You already knew that.”

“Yeah,” she whispers, and drags a chair out from the corner so she can sit next to her sister. “And you must be Commander Dameron. I’ve also heard about you.”

“Pleasure,” Poe says graciously, reaching out to shake her hand. “Is that necklace Haysian ore?”

“Yep! Hays Minor, born and bred,” Rose says, clutching it. “It’s a good luck charm, shared between me and Paige. Must have done its job out there on the battlefield.”

Poe nods. “Must have. Paige destroyed the Dreadnought.”

Rose gapes. “My sister took out an entire Dreadnought? By herself? I always told her she’d do something crazy one of these days. At least she’s alive to remember it.”

“Hey,” Poe said, “most everyone made it. That’s a reason for celebration if I’ve ever seen one.”

Rose laughs, wiping tears off of her cheeks. “Commander Dameron, I like what you’re thinking. Party in the med bay! Just me, Paige…and two heroes.”

And there’s the starstruck look again.

Finn can’t handle awkward silence. “I mean, I don’t know if I’m a hero. I just ran away from the First Order, I didn’t even want to join the Resistance. I’m still not part of the Resistance.”

“You were paralyzed with fear, and you could have run anywhere in the galaxy, but you ran to D’Qar. To help us. You fought Kylo Ren, you destroyed Starkiller Base. You’re as much a hero as anyone here.” Rose seems to know an awful lot about Finn’s past week.

“Thanks,” Finn says, looking at the ground. “But I just did it to save Rey.”

Poe interrupts this time, like he can read Finn’s mind. Which he can’t. Poe can’t use the Force either. Finn’s pretty sure. “Everyone’s here to save someone. You saved me, the first time we met.”

“I just needed a pilot—”

“And you saved me to do it. Finn. You deserve to be a hero. Don’t doubt yourself.”

The door slides open and a Lieutenant steps into the room. “Commander Dameron,” she nods, “the General requests your presence on the bridge.”

“Be right there, Connix,” Poe says, and almost falls out of bed trying to get up. Finn supports him, and it’s clear Poe can’t walk without his help.

“I’m coming with you,” Finn says, and there’s no question about it.

As they leave the room, Poe waves to Rose. “Glad to meet you. We’ll be back soon, I’m sure, because I can’t breathe too well without my mask.”

**

The last time Finn saw General Organa, it was on land, and Han Solo was still among the living. This time, Organa is more composed, more serious, and no one on the bridge is smiling. They’re all standing over an output.

Someone fires out, “Thirty-six thousand meters and closing!”

“How fast?”

“Calculating!”

“What’s happening,” Poe breathes, and steadies himself against Finn. In the monitor, the Star Destroyer looms large and blue.

General Organa smiles at Poe, and Finn swears Poe is somehow related to her, because she wouldn’t treat anyone this way except for a son. It’s just a moment, and then she resumes her serious expression. “Star Destroyer, dropped out of hyperspace right behind us.”

“The same one as before?”

“Does it look like the First Order has more than one Star Destroyer? It’s the same one.”

Poe grips the edge of the counter, his face obscured by the hologram. “They tracked us through lightspeed.”

“Indeed. The question remains how.”

Finn knows there’s no way the First Order can track a ship through hyperspace, so it must be something else.

It must be _him_.

Finn’s breath catches in his throat. Of course the First Order wouldn’t let go of him this easily. He’s a traitor, a liability. He knows everything about them, and he won’t hesitate to tell the Resistance all of the First Order’s well-kept secrets. They must know how to track him.

But—Finn looks around the room. He can’t give himself up to the General. They all already think he’s a traitor—and Finn can feel their thoughts pressing on him and choking him. He doesn’t want to run blindly away, not any more. He wants to stay with the Resistance, with Poe, but if he’s a liability, he’ll get tossed out of an airlock and left behind. It’s happened to his friends before.

Leia is motioning to a ring on her finger. “This is my beacon to Rey. If we need her to help us, she’s only a jump away.”

“Rey won’t be able to fight an entire Star Destroyer by herself,” Finn says. “She’s just one person.”

“Do we want Rey flying into a firefight? It seems risky,” Poe says. “Have you scrambled our fighters yet?”

“Of course I have,” Leia says. “They’re gearing up at their stations now.”

Before Poe can interrupt, she continues, “And you’re not going anywhere. I can see your eyes, you know, and without Finn, you would be collapsed on the floor. I just came to get your opinion on the fleet’s attack method.”

“Quick and dirty,” comes Poe’s reply, with only a slight twitch to register that he intended the innuendo. “The Star Destroyer doesn’t have any surface cannons, so the faster we can get our ships out there and swarming before the TIE Fighters have a chance to scramble, then the more damage we can inflict. We can end this now.”

“And we can move our cruiser out of firing range of the Star Destroyer if it’s engaged with our fighters and not us. Ackbar, relay orders.”

Admiral Ackbar relays the instructions to the fighters.

Poe rests his head against Finn’s. “I should be out there,” he says quietly.

“No,” Finn convinces him. “You need to rest.”

“You’re right,” Poe says, and coughs blood into Finn’s sleeve.

The General isn’t paying attention to them any longer, focused on their fleet, and Finn hears a, “Psst!” from the doorway.

Rose is standing in the hallway, looking extremely awkward as she peers onto the bridge.

Finn waves.

Rose motions for them to come to her.

Finn walks Poe into the hallway. The door hisses shuts behind them.

Rose hands them a portable oxygen mask. “I found it in a box in the med bay, and I thought that you might need it.”

Poe thanks her and puts the oxygen mask up to his nose and mouth. Immediately his rasping slows down.

“We should get him back to med bay,” Rose tells Finn. “He needs to sit down.”

Finn agrees, and Rose slings an arm around Poe from the other side. The three of them walk back to the med bay.

As soon as Poe is lying back down, his eyes fluttering closed, the cruiser banks hard to the left and Finn can hear the hull implode.

“What’s happening?” Finn hisses.

“Direct hit,” Rose looks around wildly. “We’re under attack.”

Finn rushes out into the hall, and unlike the last time, everyone in the Resistance is also in the hallway, looking out the windows into the starry night, directly at the Star Destroyer and the many TIE Fighters swarming their cruiser.

“We didn’t scramble quickly enough,” Finn mutters to himself. The pilots are still jumping into their ships in the hangar behind him, and the cruiser is rocked with fire. Up above them, he sees a Silencer, and Finn doesn’t know what comes over him, but his throat is jammed into his stomach and he can’t breathe. He can only freeze.

Without asking, he knows who is in that cruiser. And where it’s aiming.

Finn might scream, he might push people out of the way, but all he really knows that he’s doing is running towards the bridge, hand outstretched. He feels a boom that cracks his bones and he flings himself against the door of the bridge, head pressed against the airlock.

But there’s no bridge anymore, just a gaping hole and the cold vacuum of space.

Finn can’t breathe. He can’t see anyone still in the bridge, as the vacuum has flung them out into the stars, and they are nowhere to be found.

But—Finn can see them in his mind. Organa. Ackbar. Statura. All struggling for breath, struggling for the green root that is life.

It’s like a simulation again, when he was a child. How do you save them all, when you can do nothing? No way to win, but you must. It’s like facing Ren on Starkiller, the ignited sword in his hand. Instinct. Duty. Hope.

Finn reaches out his hands, planting them against the airlock door, and reaches out with his mind. He holds onto them. He says, _Not today._ He fights against the odds, against all logic, against everything he knew to be true about himself, and he pulls them back.

They don’t come easy. He can feel the pressure rising within them, their lives wilting like a bruised flower, like Finn after a failed simulation, bruises from staves on his neck and back.

_Not today._ It’s not a simulation, it’s real life, and in real life, there is always a way to survive. Finn draws the floating bodies back to him with the raw power of something growing deep inside him, and when he opens his eyes again, he can see Leia Organa.

Leia has her hand outstretched, her eyes open, locking them with Finn. Finn stares back, teeth clenched, until Organa’s hand is mirrored with his against the glass.

Finn stumbles back. Someone hits the button to the airlock, and Finn can’t breathe for a moment the vacuum sucks air out of the hallway, but Organa and Ackbar and Statura are dragged back inside, the airlock slamming shut.

Finn lies on his back, turns around, and vomits.

Behind him, Rose holds Poe upright in the hall, and Poe is reaching for Organa as people more equipped than him load her onto a stretcher.

Finn also reaches for her, one last time. She drops a ring into his hands, sharing one last look with him before she passes out.

Finn looks down into his hands, the cloaked tracker ring, the signal to Rey, in his grasp.

He can do it. He can leave and make sure Rey doesn’t come back to this death rattle of a Resistance. He can make sure she stays alive to save the galaxy from Ren, if only Finn can get this ring out of here.

Finn’s memory comes and goes as Rose takes him and Poe back to Poe’s quarters. They are silent. Poe is coughing blood again.

They sit Finn down. They snap under his nose.

Finn immediately says, “I’m sorry!”

Poe recoils a bit, and assures him, “Don’t worry, you’re not with the First Order any more.”

“No, I know,” Finn admits. “Just a gut reaction.”

“Do you know what happened?” Rose says, awe evident in her voice. “I saw Leia, _the_ Leia, leading everyone back here with the Force! She saved the bridge! Finn, did you see it?”

Finn doesn’t respond.

The Force.

The Force is what saved Leia and the bridge crew.

Finn had put his hand to the glass and used the Force.

It was too much to think about right now.

“Hey,” he interrupts, and Rose looks at him expectantly. “We have another problem to deal with.” Finn motions to the ring.

“We can’t have Rey coming back here,” Poe says, like he can read Finn’s mind, like he can also use the Force.

Because Finn can use the Force.

Finn pushes the thought out of his mind. “And the First Order is somehow tracking us. Through hyperspace.”

“That shouldn’t be possible,” Rose says.

“But it somehow is,” Poe continues, “which means we can’t jump to hyperspace again and outrun them. This is our last stand.”

“Not if we can disable their trackers,” Finn says. “I don’t know how they’re tracking, but whatever it is has to work like a normal tracker, right?”

“The First Order only tracks from their lead ship—in this case, the only ship that they have that isn’t a fighter.” Rose points out the window at the hulking ship continuing to advance on the Resistance. “The Star Destroyer.”

“So we destroy the Star Destroyer, and the Resistance wins,” Poe says.

Finn shakes his head. His ears are still ringing. “We assume they have the ability to track through hyperspace on all of their vessels, even the smaller reconnaissance ones. They’ll just track us through those if the Destroyer is taken out.”

“And the First Order has to have hidden ships all along the galaxy,” Rose rambles. “It’s just smart tactics. There will be more with the same tech.”

Poe sits down. “So that’s it. This is the last day of the Resistance.”

“No,” Finn says. “It’s not. If we get in there, _disable_ the tracker, we’ll have about six minutes to jump to hyperspace before they noticed we have. It’s the best way to get out of here alive so we can regroup.”

Poe nods to himself.

Rose looks between them. “Sounds like a reasonable plan.”

“It’s the only one we got,” Poe says, looking out to the Star Destroyer. “All of our leadership is unconscious. We don’t have a plan to survive the night. All we have is a hope and a prayer.”

Rose touches her necklace. “You’re damn right we do, and it’s the best shot we got.”

Finn looks to the Destroyer. He nods. “Let’s do this.”

**Author's Note:**

> check out my masterpost [on tumblr](http://rosesskywalker.tumblr.com/post/168773996267/buckle-up-kids-were-fixing-tlj) and maybe [subscribe to this series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/896961) so you can check out my next installments


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